About Me

I serve as Senior Pastor of Church of the Palms in Sarasota, Florida. I received my Doctor of Letters from the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University. Author of "Take Me to Aslan: C.S. Lewis and the Art of Trusting" and "When the Wind is Against You: Encouragement for When Life Pushes Back" available at Amazom and Kindle.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

I wonder if it isn’t time to go back to Narnia. I wonder if we are in one of those moments in
our history when it would do us well to climb back into that wardrobe of furs
and push our way through to the portal and reenter Aslan’s land. Not to escape. Not to lose ourselves in some fantasy. Not to retreat from the cruel world. But to discover again who we are and what it
means to be real.

Things are real in Narnia.
They’re real at the level at which we want them most to be real. In Narnia promises matter. In Narnia telling the truth matters. In Narnia how honest you are with yourself
matters. In Narnia there are
consequences to how you treat someone, anyone.
In Narnia the structure of the story, the frame of each character, the
very nature of existence, is held together by the mortar of these basic
things.

In Narnia we learn that really, really good candy is not
worth it if it means selling your soul.
In Narnia the chivalry of a mouse is stronger than the coils of a sea
serpent. In Narnia it’s wise to trust
the one you’ve normally trusted even when she asks you to do something
crazy. In Narnia evil has an enchanting
spell. In Narnia the one who wants
control won’t always tell you the truth.
In Narnia sometimes sacrifices have to be made. In Narnia the oldest
stories are the best stories. In Narnia
the whole thing got started with a song. In Narnia the most important thing to
hold onto is each other. In Narnia the lion is not safe, but he’s good.

I wonder if it’s time to go back to Narnia. I wonder
sometimes if in our complicated world we’ve lost touch with reality (at least I
think I have). I wonder if we are
stacking the blocks but forgetting the mortar.
I wonder if in our effort to be safe we’ve forgotten to be good.

More and more I think that all I ever needed to learn I
learned in Narnia.